


Hang on to yourself, chapter 4

by basaltgrrl



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-26 02:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basaltgrrl/pseuds/basaltgrrl





	Hang on to yourself, chapter 4

 

  
Monday, 5:45 a.m.

Gene got up to take a slash.

The world had shifted from black shapes to grey outside the uncurtained windows of their flat.  The night air stank of damp wood and mildew.  He paused by the kitchen window, leaning over the sink to scan the dark street.  The shadows hid the trash, the weeds, the stained concrete, but the place was lifeless.  Wait--a flicker of movement, an alley cat ghosting across the road.  It paused with one paw lifted, then disappeared into the darkness under a car.  The quiet street seemed to heave a breath, sighing in through the window and out again.  Gene fumbled for his pocket, fished out a cigarette and lit it without looking, closing his eyes as the first buzz of nicotine hit with a pleasurable rush.

The blanket-covered lump on the sofa rolled over and groaned.  Gene ignored the sound, lingered in his small moment of quiet while the tendrils of smoke curled around his face like--no.  There wasn't time or space for that kind of shite.  The soft, lonely mess in his mind, the awareness of what was missing.  He tapped a finger impatiently on the countertop.  There was only focus; the job at hand, the necessity of working with Carl Reynolds.  He stared out over the rooftops, at the spot where the sky was starting to take on colour and shape. 

"Fuckin' hell."  The bedroom door banged open.  Gene twisted around to see Carl swaying in the doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes.  "What bloody time is it?"

"Too bloody early," Gene answered him and stared out the window again.  The pink sky made silhouettes of buildings.

Carl disappeared into the loo and slammed the door.  Gene flipped on the kitchen light, ignoring the soft curses from around the room, let his cigarette drop into the sink, and then turned on the kettle and fished a frying pan out of the cabinet.  By the time Carl had finished his morning ablutions, Gene had a half-dozen eggs sizzling in the pan.

"Good man," Carl said, clapping him on the shoulder before dropping tea bags into the pot and filling it with the steaming water.  As the room filled with the smell of hot oil and the perfume of black pekoe, Carl made a circuit of the sitting room, poking the slowly stirring mounds of men with his toe.  "Up and at 'em, gents.  Get your lazy arses out of bed.  Christ, it's like being a nanny--what, do you need me to cut your toast for you?"

Mackie sat up straight on the sofa.  "No, boss," he muttered, then buried his face in his hands.  "Think I had one too many last night."

"Girl," Gene growled.

"Oi!  I didn't see you holding back!"

"Didn't need to.  I can outdrink every one of you toe rags and still be walking a line straighter than you can shoot that gun of yours."

"Bollocks!"

Carl flashed a grin at Gene from across the room.  It was so unexpected that Gene grinned back, noting the way the long planes of Carl's face became softened and humanized by the expression.

"Breakfast," he announced, transferring the skillet to the table.  A moment later he had rescued the toast from the grill, grabbed marmalade and butter and a table knife and deposited the lot next to a stack of plates.  "Serve yourselves; I'm the cook, not your bloody mother."

The men dragged themselves out of their blankets, onto their feet.  There weren't enough chairs in the place for the lot of them, but Mackie, Fred and Geordie sat on the sofa, Gene, Carl and Peter at the table. 

"What's on the list for today?" Geordie asked Carl as they were all scraping their plates.  There was a sudden, anticipatory hush.

Carl leaned back in his chair, lighting a cigarette.  His casual arrogance made Gene want to cuff the back of his head, snatch the fag from his mouth and slam his forehead against the table.  Ah, yes, Carl did rub him the wrong way.  And yeah, he could tell that it was because they were so much alike.  No wonder Sam had fought so fiercely, sometimes just for the principle of the thing.  It was only now, in this situation, that Gene fully understood what it had been like for Sam in those early days.

"Today, then," Carl drawled.  "We'll be on the west end of town.  I have some names of people we need to talk to.  We'll split up, groups of two."  He paused to inhale smoke.  "Henry, you're with me."

Gene gave a curt nod.  It was no more than he had expected.  He wasn't sure if Carl was trying to test him, single him out, keep him away from the others... There was something.  But there were moments, like that grin from across the room just before breakfast, when there seemed to be a real bond.  Maybe Carl was still trying to suss him out, to know how to use Gene to the fullest, or just to know what kind of resource he had on his team.  Maybe he had suspicions; maybe he was digging for the truth.

In any case, Gene was his man.

 

Tuesday, 9:45 p.m. 

"Tossers!" Gene snarled, slamming a shoulder against the door as he barged out into the night street, adrenaline and whisky burning in his veins.  It felt right and good and oddly proper to be getting lit of a Friday night, and without a care in the world--it was Carl's team, not his, not his responsibility to make sure anyone got home safely... not that he did much of that back in CID, mind, but the thought was always there, or the awareness, anyway.  Always paying attention, especially to Chris.  Well, and Sam.  Why?  Because he didn't like seeing Sam get punched, not when he wasn't doing it himself.  And there was that weird twist in his stomach when he saw blood on Sam's face, the unaccountable concern, almost what he felt when a bird got hurt.  Not the same, though.  He bared his teeth at the sky, took a hard slug from his hipflask and grinned.

None of that tonight.  Just drinking and bonding and the unthinking way Carl seemed to be accepting Gene's presence at his shoulder.

He turned around and stuck his head back in the pub.  "Oi!  Carl!  Coming, mate?"

The barman shook his fist--not goodnaturedly, neither, and Carl was already on his way to the door, shrugging on his jacket, Geordie and Fred at his heels. 

The four of them slouched off down the lane, a little unsteady on their feet, puffing clouds of cigarette smoke into the night air.

"God, I can't wait to be rich," Geordie announced to the world after a while.  "I'd like to own a really posh car.  Maybe one of them, them Jaguars.  Birds fighting to ride with me.  What do you want to buy, Mack?"

"Allus wanted to run a club.  Be the bloke in charge." 

Carl snorted derisively.  "Start small, my man.  Money runs away faster than you can guess."

"People do it all the time, though!"

"Lose the shirts off their backs, too.  No thanks."

They strode on in silence for a while, footsteps echoing off damp concrete.

"And you, Henry?"

Carl's eye was speculative, judging.  Gene snorted.  "Find a good woman, move to Spain... not necessarily in that order.  After that... depends on the world, really.  Depends how well this job does for me.  How well might this job do for me, Carl?"

"We should all make out like bandits."

"All I want is enough money that I don't have to listen to what anyone says."  As Gene spoke the words, intending them to be flippant, typical of the character he was playing, he realized how true they rang.  It's what he would want, were he actually a lowlife scrote--and for all that it felt good to not be in charge, it also felt wrong.  He wanted authority, wanted it with a burning desire, resented Carl for taking it from him. 

"Cor!" crowed Mackie.  "He wants to be king of the world!"

"No, just king of my world," Gene groused.

"Carl!  What're you going to do?"

Footsteps crunched on gravel, echoing off brick walls.

"Plan the next job."

Gene rolled his eyes.  "What, you don't have an end in sight?"

"I'm living the dream," Carl growled, face made skeletal by the shadows.  "Why should I make other plans?"  He closed his eyes for a moment, as if too tired to keep them open, as he took a long drag on a cigarette.  "'S my bleeding life.  All there is.  All there will be.  And I'm fucking good at it."

"That you are, mate," Fred mumbled.  "Bleedin' lunatic, but you got it all planned out."

"Do you?" Gene asked.

"Hell yes.  Can't you tell what I'm thinking?  Cos I can read your mind."

"What am I thinking, then?"  Gene met Carl's gaze with his best Manc Lion stare, his biggest chest-puffed-out pose.

Carl eyed him with a wry smile, wintry under the bleak light of the street lights.  "Think you're the big man, eh?  I can tell, Williams, that you haven't told me any more than I've told you.  Yeah, I know I stepped into your territory, and you didn't like that.  Could read it from the start.   I'm no fool, mate, and I don't need to throw my weight around.  I came into town because I have it in me to make the biggest haul and be the biggest hero.  And thing is," he stepped a little closer, close enough to throw an arm over Gene's shoulders, "I can take you out.  I don't need the rest of these, I can take you out myself if I have any doubt.  Understand?"

Gene found himself nodding, the weight of that arm pressing each of his footfalls harder into the street.

 

 

Wednesday, 10:10 a.m. 

The bank teller looked Gene over with a languid eye, then extended an imperious hand for his deposit slip.  Gene looked sideways, then stuffed his hands into his pockets, itching for a smoke.

"Mr. Williams?"

"That's right."

"You want to deposit fifteen pounds?"

"That's correct."

The teller lifted an eyebrow--so fucking imperious that Gene wanted to punch him one just to make him stop--and brought pen to paper.  "I just needed to ascertain your true intentions."

"I bloody well wrote it down, didn't I?"

"Indeed, sir, you did.  Well then, your fifteen pounds?"

Gene dug around in his trouser pocket and withdrew the handful of grubby notes.  The teller gave him another look before sorting the money with his fingertips.  Gene glanced around the room again; he was the only one of the team in here.  There was one entrance to the rear of the bank, through the door behind the counter.  Just a few employees at this time of day.  He had a brief, involuntary vision of walking out the front door to find Sam leaning against the wall, waiting for him, all skinny limbs and black leather and shit-eating grin.

Access to the back would have to be during working hours, unless Carl had some serious explosives available to him.  As was typical of banks, physical security was of the "thick iron bars" variety.  As he gazed into the far corner of the room, Gene flashed back to the conversation of the morning.

"You want me to what?"

"Case the bank."

"That's what I thought you said."

Carl had cocked an eyebrow--somehow it always seemed odd to watch his face change expression, as if his habitual dour, chiseled look was permanent--and hadn't answered in words.

"Well, why?  Are we going to rob it?"

"Can't you just take an order, for bleeding once, Williams?  Set a good example, be a good little messenger boy and tell me what the inside of that building looks like?"

Gene had inhaled hugely, biding his time and pondering motives.  "Can," he had drawled at last.  "Don't know as though I want to unless I've got a good reason to."

"Insufferable git."

"What am I going to get out of it?"

"You know what."  They had stared into each other's faces for far too long at that point; long enough that Gene felt sweat prickling between his shoulder blades.  "Information," Carl growled at last.  "We'll know things we didn't know before."

Oh, aye, Gene thought to himself.  We'll know a few things.  But nothing was obvious with Carl.  Nothing was what it seemed.  He still didn't know what it had meant.  Did Carl want to rob a bank?  He needed to make another phone call to Sam, sometime soon.  There might be a phone he could use, here in the building, without being seen by any of Carl's men.

As the teller handed him his receipt, he cleared his throat.  "Is there a phone I can use?"

"Yes, sir.  In the hall toward the front entrance.  You came directly past it.  Will that be all?"

"Yeah.  Cheers."

Gene found that his heart was pounding as he picked up the phone receiver.  He might not get Sam at once; he might have to talk to Phyllis.  But--he dialed Sam's direct line.

"CID, Sam Tyler speaking." 

Gene choked on his words for a moment, then stammered, "Sam, it's me."

"Gene!"  There was a silence, a faint shuffle of paper.  Sam sighed.  "How are you?"

"Fine.  Just needed to let you know, the target may be a bank.  Might be Barclays.  Can't guarantee anything.  Still not sure when."  Nervous--why was he nervous?

"OK.  Well, let me know the details when you have them.  Otherwise it's as good as sitting on our thumbs, doing nothing."

"I just--"  Gene cut himself off.  He couldn't bloody well say that he just wanted to hear the sound of Sam's voice, now, could he?

"You don't have to keep doing this."

"That's where you're wrong."

"Your heart's not in it, Gene.  I can tell.  I can read you like a book, even over the phone, you--"

Gene dropped the receiver in the cradle.

Carl's face was peering in through the glass doors of the bank, hand cupped over his brow to block the light.  Hard to tell where his eyes were.  Hard to tell what he was looking at.  Impossible to know his mind.  
  



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